THIS item, which I have
translated from the Arabic for
the AR-Online website,
reports that Palestinian and
Western demonstrators gathered to
protest Rachel Corrie's murder,
and that Israeli tanks attacked
them.

SECURITY sources and
Palestinian eye-witnesses report that the
Israeli occupation army opened fire in the
direction of hundreds of Palestinian and
dozens of foreign peace activists.

The demonstrators were planting olive
and palm trees in the spot where a
bulldozer belonging to the occupation
forces killed
the American peace activist Rachel
Corrie in the al-Salam district in
Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip. The
demonstration was an expression of their
protest and denunciation of the
killing.

The sources said that about thirty
American and European activists in the
solidarity movement with the Palestinian
people joined about 300 Palestinians to
express their "protest and rejection" of
the killing of the American activist who
was run over last Sunday by an Israeli
army bulldozer.

Eye-witnesses reported that seven
Israeli tanks penetrated several dozen
meters into the al-Salam district and
opened fire with bullets, tear gas
canisters, and percussion explosives in
the direction of the Palestinian and
foreign demonstrators who tried to put
roses on the tanks shortly before the
vehicles withdrew.

An AFP photographer reported that a
number of foreign activists sat down on
the ground in an attempt to prevent the
advance of the tanks, whereupon they
opened fire. A medical source said that a
number of demonstrators, two of them
foreigners, lost consciousness from the
choking effects of the tear gas. They were
treated at the scene.